Government blamed the Kunming attack on militants from Xinjiang region.

A knife fight broke out between two vendors at an outdoor market. (File Photo: Reuters)

A knife-wielding attacker hacked five persons to death before being shot dead by police in a central Chinese city, reminiscing a slashing spree at a railway station by militants from the restive Xinjaing province that claimed 33 lives.

A knife fight broke out between two vendors reportedly from volatile northwestern Xinjiang province at an outdoor market in Changsha City, the capital of Hunan province.

A vendor fatally attacked and killed another after a heated debate. He then started attacking innocent bystanders,killing two persons and injuring two others, before being shot dead by the police.

The two injured later died in hospital, Changsha police said.The vendors were said to be from Xinjiang, home to the mostly-Muslim Uygur minority, media reports said.

Police had cordoned off the site and primary school in a north Changsha neighbourhood has been closed, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

China remains nervous after a deadly stabbing incident at the railway station in Kunming, the capital of southwest Yunnan province, on March 1 in which 33 people were killed and 143 wounded.

The government blamed the Kunming attack on militants from Xinjiang region where the native Muslim Uygur community is opposed to settlements of people from the majority Hans from the rest of the country.

It was the first time militants from the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al-Qaeda-backed group,from Xinjiang had been blamed for carrying out such a large-scale attack from their remote homeland.